`Ex Bangladesh army officer supervised offloading of illegal arms’

Dhaka, June 4 (IANS) The off-loading of an arms and ammunition consignment meant for an Indian militant outfit was supervised by a former Bangladesh Army major who was working as deputy director in the National Security Intelligence (NSI), police say. Two sergeants, who helped seize the consignment, identified Major (retd)) Liakat in a court in Chittagong, the Daily Star newspaper said Thursday.

They said Liakat had checked into Hotel Golden Inn in the port town under a fake name, Abul Hossain, March 30, 2004.

Liakat supervised the offloading of the consignment of 10 truckloads of illegal arms and ammunition purchased from China and brought on a ship owned by a senior lawmaker belonging to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party which was then in power.

Detective Branch sources said sergeants Alauddin and Helal Uddin identified Liakat as the man who checked into the hotel as Abul Hossain.

The arms were to be sent to the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a separatist militant outfit active in northeastern India.

New Delhi alleges that ULFA’s top brass, including its chief Paresh Barua, operate from Bangladesh and carry out violent operations in India.

The illegal arms case was suppressed in 2004, but has since been revived after the change of the government in Dhaka in January.

Two former senior army officers, Major General Rezakkul Hyder Chowdhury and Brigadier General Abdur Rahim, who were then with the NSI, a key intelligence outfit, have been detained. They are being interrogated at the taskforce for interrogation (TFI) cell in Dhaka, the newspaper said.